Scrolls of Wisdom

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Sure it's been a while since I blogged, and Summer's half-over now, but why hold that against me? I don't make the time go by. Best to enjoy the luke-warm weather while you still can, because you know what they say... Winter is Coming! And according to the internet, there's 5 Game of Thrones spin-offs in the works. So. Winter will be coming again, and again, and again. Much like a Thai hooker on E.

Our first review of the night is Sharknado 5: Global Swarming (2017). This time around, "Finn," the recurring hero of the Sharknado movies, teams up with his half-zombie, half-robot wife to try and stop the latest wave of Sharknadoes, along with their son. As with all the Sharknado movies, things don't always go as planned, because of, well, the flying sharks. They even get some help from Nova, Finn's bartender from the first movie, who had a problem getting her hindquarters grabbed by the late John Heard, who died just last month (though his character was eaten by a shark in the first movie).

By this point in the series, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the Sharknado movies "jumped the shark" about 4 movies ago, and you'd be right, but that hasn't stopped them yet. I honestly had a hard time watching this movie, because it literally re-used every single cheesy science fiction and fantasy movie plot, badly, from the last 30 or 40 years. Plus, they added time travel, which just bugs the shit out of me. I hate time travel movies. So, if anyone asks you at what point the "Sharknado" movies REALLY jumped the shark, tell them you knew it was when Dolph Lundgren showed up.

Dolph Lundgren is one of my favorite actors, honestly. He's got a black belt in martial arts, speaks several languages, has a degree in chemical engineering ( I think?), and supposedly an IQ of 160 (which even beats me by a tiny smidgen). Lately, though, his movie career has pretty much been a bunch of direct-to-video flops. The only notable exception is the Expendables series, and I think we all know there's a lot more actors in those movies than just Dolph Lundgren, so his appearance in those movies doesn't really count. But, if you see Dolph Lundgren starring in a movie, chances are pretty much 99% that the movie isn't going to win any Oscars. Which makes me wonder, are the Sharknado movies now going to be a Ziering / Lundgren mashup from now on? Because honestly, I didn't think the Sharknado movies could get any worse. Come to think of it, maybe Dolph is just what the SHarknado movies need. They can't get any worse, so maybe the only direction they can go is up? I guess I can only hope.

Sharknado 5 was on Syfy, if anyone wants to watch it, I am sure they will replay it at some point. If you don't see it this year, look for Sharknado 6 next year. Sharknado 5 will undoubtedly play right before Sharknado 6 premieres. Would I watch Sharknado 5 again? Dear God, no. Not if you paid me. Well, maybe if you paid me. A lot.

Incarnate (2016) is an exorcism tale with a twist. Aaron Eckhart stars as a paralyzed psychiatrist who helps possessed people escape the confines of the spell of demonic possession by going into their minds and getting them to personally cast out the demons by themselves. Unfortunately, the process is pretty hard on him, and as it turns out, he's actually hunting an entity he calls "Maggie," for lack of a better name. Also unfortunately, "Maggie" is actually an Arch-Demon, who is now in possession of a small boy.

Okay, so my plot synopsis maybe gave away some minor plot points for Incarnate, which actually wasn't a bad movie. When I first started watching it, I assumed the paralyzed psychiatrist (I assume he's a psychiatrist, he seems to know a lot about psychiatry?) was going to be one of those "it's not demons, it's just a mental disorder" guys, but that wasn't the case here. Maybe the movie would have been better with that, as we see him wrestle with his world-view and finally come around to the conclusion that there are demons, but maybe that wasn't necessary for this movie. Maybe it would have just got in the way of the plot, which was already pretty decent.

Minor plot spoilers aside, I think Incarante is actually enjoyable, and it's playing on Cinemax this month. Orders of magnitude better than Sharknado 5, and also better than your usual exorcism movie. There's even a couple fairly cute babes in it, but no nudity, which is a drawback for me, but not a huge one. Check it out if you get the chance. If nothing else, it's NOT a found-footage movie, so you don't have to dea with that crap. Isn't that a good enough recommendation?

In other news... There's not really anything exciting going on right now, except of course in Politics. I don't do politics, so, good luck with that sorry mess. :-) That's all for tonight. Til next time!

Thursday, July 20, 2017

There's nothing good to watch on TV or Netflix lately, so I went insane and bought a game, Elder Scrolls Online. I'd like to say ESO was worth the $30, but I don't really think it was. I'd like to say I am enjoying playing it, but I'm not. I'd like to say there's an engaging story line and the quests aren't boring and repetitive, but I can't. I'd like to say they didn't take the entire Elder Scrolls Universe and turn it into another boring MMO grind, but, well, you know. They did.

Let's start at the beginning. Character Selection. The backstory tells us that there are ten races in ESO, divided up into three groups of three races each, fighting against each other for... reasons. Don't ask me what the reasons are. That part of the backstory was kinda vague. And yes, I know 3x3=9. That leaves one race missing. As it turns out, you can't be the Imperial race unless you pre-ordered the game (an impossibility now that it's out), or want to shell out additional cash to pay for the privilege of being an Imperial. Why are the Imperials cash-only? Are they that much better than the other races that they are worth the money to pay for them? I don't know. You can't find that stuff out unless you shell out the money first, and I don't buy anything sight-unseen. Like most MMO's, each race is better one thing or another, and some races have multiple bonuses for different things.

Classes. There's 4 classes, or 5 if you order Morrowind, the big $40 DLC add-on that the game REALLY wants you to buy. Dragonknights are armored warriors that cast flame spells, but their real focus is melee weapons. Templars are armored healers who use light and fire to damage enemies. Nightblades are stealth-archer-assassins with a bit of life-stealing magic. Sorcerors are spell-slingers who mostly wield lightning magic, and can summon a daedric pet. The fifth class is Warden, and I have no idea what that is, but I see a lot of people in game running around with pet bears. I can't find out what Wardens do without shelling out another $40 cash for the Morrowind Expansion.

None of the races seem particularly interesting, at least to me. There's Bretons, Orcs and Redguard for the Daggerfall Covenant. Bretons are humans, good at resisting magic and regenerating magicka (that you use to cast spells with). Orcs are good at melee and heavy armor. Redguards also seem good at melee, though I never tried one, to be honest. For the Aldmeri Dominion, there's High Elves, Wood Elves, and Khajit (cat-like species). High Elves are good at raising magicka and dealing magic staff damage (if they can find one), Wood Elves are good at archery, and I'm not sure what Khajit are good at, as I never tried them either. For the Ebonheart Pact, there's the Argonians (lizard-folk), Dark Elves, and Nords. Argonians make decent healers, Dark elves are good at dealing magic damage, and Nords are good at melee and resisting cold. Honestly, I never tried a Nord either. I really dislike humans in MMO's, and never pick them as racial choices.

I like spell-casting in my MMO's, but you'll be using a weapon in ESO whether you want to or not. No matter what race or class you select, you're stuck with a two-handed sword to play through the tutorial with, until you find something better. Eventually you defeat some evil douchebag in the tutorial and make a level, and you can spend your first skill point on obtaining a skill. You have three skill choices to start with, the varieties dependent upon what class you decided on. Ultimately, you'll be relying on that two-handed sword to put the enemies down with, because at the beginning levels, you just don't have the spells to damage the bad guys enough. After a few more levels and spending more skill points, you can spam the two damage spells you get to put the enemy down, if your mana bar was full to start with. if it wasn't, or if your enemy was tough (most of them are), then you're still slashing away with that two handed sword until the bad guy goes down.

Much like the Elder Scrolls game that bethesda made in the past, you learn as you go in this game. Using that two-handed sword levels up your skill with two-handed weapons, but i'm not exactly sure what good that does you. Maybe you do more damage? I don't know. I do know you don't get any additional skill points to spend until your character actually levels up, and that means grinding away killing beasts and running around finishing quests. Find a knife? that's one-handed, and if you keep using it, your one-hand skill goes up. At some point, if you're a spell-caster, you hope to find a magic staff. If you've very lucky, at some point int he first 5 levels, you actually find a magic staff that you can use as a weapon.

Quests are pretty repetitive. Go here, kill this beast. Find my friends. Find my lost things. And... yeah, that's about it. Seems like nobody in the entire game wants to just go and find their own friends, go and kill the beasts themselves, and why the fuck does everyone keep losing their stuff? If I lost my stuff as much as the people in this game, I'd go and get my brain checked for dementia. The quests that further the plot line are a mix of all three of these types of quests, so don't think you can avoid the grind just by sticking to the plot line.

The graphics are nice, and the character detail is impressive, but the locations really aren't that spectacular. Everyone starts out in another dimension, the realm of Molag Bal, which is pretty boring. Once you get past the tutorial, the landscape doesn't get much more interesting. If you join the Ebonheart pact (by choosing a Nord, Argonian or Dark Elf as your race), you start the game on a snow-covered little rock in the middle of the sea. Half the villagers are missing, and you have to find them just to get off the rock. Rocks and snow aren't much fun to look at, at least, not for me. The other groups start out in deserts, or on sandy islands. You'd think the scenery would be nice to look at, but somehow, it's not. There's broken ruins everywhere, huge stone pieces of junk that look like they should be interesting, but they aren't. I have a minor in Archaeology, for crying out loud. You'd think, if anyone playing this game would be curious about pieces of rock with runes on them, it'd be me. But nope! They all look pretty boring, and serve only to separate one area from the next.

There's not really any point in making friends in this game. Even if you start out at the same time, whoever has more spare time to kill is going to rapidly outstrip their friends in terms of levels. You'll still be playing the start quests, while they are off riding their new mounts in lands you've never heard off. Same rationale for joining a guild. Sure, they'll help out new folks at first, but then, you're all different levels, in all different locations, doing all different things.

Perhaps the most annoying part of this game is the in-game store. The game wants you to spend big moolah on whatever you want. Fancy mounts, pets, costumes, and even hidden locations can be purchased, for the low low price of $8 for 750 points, which you can spend on anything you like. Except the cheapest shit in the store costs a thousand points. I didn't buy anything extra. After spending the $30 for the base game, I felt I gave them enough of my money.

Crafting seems needlessly difficult. You have to collect resources, like wood or jute flowers, which are hard to find. Once you collect enough, you can refine the resources at a crafting station, which is also sometimes hard to find. Once you refine the resources, you can craft some basic item, like a robe or staff. To make a staff, you need refined wood, and a mineral that defines your style (for argonians, it's flint, for instance). If you want the staff to have some special trait or ability, you must also collect runes. Runes are involved in the enchanting process. Once you collect enough runes, and can combine them into enchantments at an enchanting table. Once you manage to find a decent enchantment (it's sort of a random process based on what runes you collect), then you can apply that enchantment to your robe or staff, IF that enchantment can be placed on those items. Sometimes, it can't. Researching a special trait for an item takes 6 hours, real time, and you can only research certain traits based on what items you've taken apart. Forget about crafting anything of any style except the one race you start with, like the Argonian Style, until you find a crafting book that allows you to craft some other style. I haven't found any yet, and I been looking.

None of the races or classes seem to have enough background or special abilities to make them very interesting. The spells do not seem very useful. It seems to me that if you can only wield lighting (like Sorcerors), then anything immune to lightning is going to be very hard to kill. Some of your spells don't even seem to do much damage, like they just hold the enemy in place for a few seconds. I suppose that's good, but other spells don't do damage to the bad guys until 5 to 10 seconds go by. Most fights should be over in 5 or ten seconds, so,a lot of my spells go off after the bad guys are dead. Seems dumb.

You can upgrade your skills or spells, once you've used them enough, and have a spare skill point to spend. You get two options and if you pick the wrong one, you can't undo it. Later on, you can find a place (there's ONE place in ONE city in ONE area, one for each side of the conflict) to reset your skill points, but it costs you gold. 100 gold for each skill point you want to undo. So if you're 30 level and want to undo your points, it will cost you 3000 gold. It seems like a trivial amount in some games, but not this one. My 10th level argonian templar has 670 gold. I couldn't even afford to reset my points if I wanted to. You can buy a skill reset with real money, but why would you want to?

If you realize you'd mis-spent your points, and you will when you're just starting out, you can always delete that character and start over. Of course, you're only allowed 8 characters, and you can't just delete them willy-nilly. You're allowed three deletions, and you have to earn the rest by playing. So, if you've made 8 characters, deleted three, made three more, and you're still dissatisfied (so, I make a lot of mistakes...), you can't delete what you have and start over until you've played the game for about 6-12 hours. Then, you earn ONE deletion. It's not even done by time passed, so if you leave the game for three days ad come back, you won't have 3 more options to delete characters you don't like. You'll still have zero, and have to earn them back by playing. Can you buy more character slots in the in-game store? Of course you can! With real money.

ESO seems little more than a generic MMO clone set in the ESO universe, with none of the character that Bethesda put into their own award-winning games. I've maxed out my character limit, and at the moment I'm kind of bored with playing the characters I made. I made a very ugly Orc sorceror, but he's horrible at spellcasting. If I want to be good at casting spells, i need to make an elf or a breton, and I don't like them. Now, I have to figure out if I want to play until I get another deletion slot, with characters I made that I don't like, or say frig it, and delete the entire game from my hard drive. Which, might be a good idea. To install ESO, you need an astonishing 87 GIGABYTES of free disk space. Using an older hard drive, I had to delete all my other games just to make room, and ended up with 4 gigabytes to spare. Hell, Skyrim only required like 5-15 Gigs, and I thought THAT was a ton.

So, was ESO worth it? Hell, no. ESO is a cash-grab designed to look like an MMO, and I'm sorry I sent Zenimax Online (the company that Bethesda licensed to make this game) my thirty bucks. Sure, I'm still playing it, but it's that or watch re-runs of Gilligan's Island, and at this point, I'm thinking maybe Gilligan would be more fun.

That's all for tonight. Til the next time I find a good movie, enjoy the summer before the snow starts falling.

Saturday, June 24, 2017

Finally, it's summer! And it's about 67 degrees as the wind and rain come bearing down on my house. Whee, glad it's finally... here? You got to love the summer solstice, and the way the news people report the beginning of the season. My one calendar says the summer solstice was on Tuesday, but the news on one channel reported the first full day of summer on Wednesday, and another channel reported Thursday as the first day of summer. I don't know, maybe we could all get together and agree on the date at some point, instead of throwing darts at a calendar while blindfolded? Just an idea. Throwing darts IS more fun, I guess.

Seems like every film is billed as the best film to come out in forever and a day, and then, 2 minutes after it hits theaters, you never hear about it again. That's how you know you got a bad film. If you keep hearing good things about a movie, even after it's been released, then go see the damn thing, because you know it's decent. Take Wonder Woman. I haven't seen it yet, but it's doing good at the box office, and everyone is saying good things about it. I haven't seen it yet, but if it is that good, then DC might finally have a winner on their hands, instead of playing poor cousin to Marvel.

Morgan (2016) was one of those films you hear a lot about at first, then it drops off the radar. Kate Mara stars as a Risk-Assessment Investigator or some shit, basically a troubleshooter sent in to find out wtf happened at a remote research facility. If you've ever seen a horror movie in your life, you know remote research facilities are always bad places to end up. Strange and creepy shit happens in these places all the time. In this particular case, the research is an artificially-made being, and I'm not giving anything away by telling you that, because that was the whole point of all the teaser trailers and movie promos. "Morgan" is the name of the artificial being.

I'm not going to say anymore about the film so I don't give anything away, except to mention that Toby Jones, Paul Giamatti and Michelle Yeoh all pop up in various supporting roles. I like Paul Giamatti in everything he does, and Kate Mara played this part pretty well. Sadly, I figured out the "twist" ending about 5 minutes into the film, and that's not an exaggeration. Kate Mara pulls up to the research facility in a car at the beginning of the movie, is welcomed into the place, and I began to suspect the "twist ending" by the time she had set her bag down on the bed int he guest room. It kinda sucks that I saw it coming that far away, but I guess it was on purpose. It doesn't take anything away from the enjoyment of the film, really.

I will say this much, that everyone seemed to rave about the performance of the young girl who played Morgan, and I guess she did fine, but I don't think the movie should have focused so much on Morgan's, ah, interest in nature, I guess you'd call it? Morgan is all going on about some natural wonder at some point, maybe waxing philosophical, I don't know. I think my eyes glazed over and I fell asleep, because a horror movie shouldn't be waxing philosophical in the middle of the damn action. Just a personal opinion, because it seemed to ruin the flow of the film, and detracted from the overall enjoyment.

Would I watch Morgan again? No, but it wasn't horrible the first time. As I said, having figured out the supposed plot twist in the first few moments, I was even more interested in seeing what happened next, so it wasn't entirely bad that I figured it out. No nudity, a fair bit of action, not a whole lot of suspense or surprises, but hey, Paul Giamatti! I think I caught Morgan on one of the premium channels. Cinemax, maybe? Can't recall.

House of Cards (Netflix) just ran it's 5th season. I finished watching it last week, but I can't really say I enjoyed it. It was one thing when Frank was going around killing co-eds (like Kate Mara) in the second season or whatever, but now that's he got to be president, it's all hushed whispers and intrigue and blah de blah blah. Politics as usual, I guess. I like action, goddammit, and House of Cards has been having less and less of it lately.

Look, I may catch hell for having this opinion, but I'm going to put it out there, because that's what this review is. My opinion. I am all for Women's lib, and I think women (and men) in Hollywood should get paid their worth in relation to the movie. We all know the big stars get paid more than the little ones, and the lead roles get more moolah than the extras. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, and nobody expects some yokel they hired to play a mud wrestler in a ten-second bar scene to get paid as much as Patrick Swayze in Roadhouse (for example), so I'm just going to come right out and say it. Robin Wright is no Kevin Spacey.

Look I'm not saying she's a bad actress, and I'm not saying she isn't integral to the series. But I watch House of Cards to see Kevin Spacey be the evil little gremlin who will kill to stay in power, and seeing him hand over his chair to his wife, well, it just didn't seem to be in character. Another thing, I could stand Kevin Spacey talking to the camera every so often because I figured he was kind of a narrator. Normally I hate it when actors break the 4th wall (Deadpool included), but if it's a narrator who happens to be part of the story, it's barely tolerable. Then Mrs. Underwood is just walking past the camera and starts talking to it this past season, and now I've got two people breaking the 4th wall. At this point, you're not talking about a narrator, you're talking about a fake documentary, and I hate real documentaries, let alone fake ones.

Suffice it to say, the profound lack of action, the narrative breaking mold, the characters switching roles, I don't know. I just don't think I'll be watching House of Cards anymore. Course, the next season probably won't be out til 2019, and I could be dead by then, so who knows. (shrug)

I managed to barely catch the series premiere of The Mist (SpikeTV) the other night. I literally happened to turn on my TV and that channel was on and I saw it coming up next. I was like WHEW! because I literally had no idea there was a Mist series coming out until I saw it coming up on TV. As it turns out, the series looks decent, but I hope at some point that they explain where the Mist came from. Neither the novel by Stephen King, nor the movie a few years back, went into detail about that. Maybe the series will give a brief rundown from a surviving soldier, I don't know. It's just got me really curious to figure out where the bloody hell this mist came from. I can only imagine (from the sudden appearance of a military guy) that some army research base accidentally opened a portal to another world, but there's no real indication of anything about that except for all the atmosphere and strange wildlife that seems to be flowing out from somewhere. I hope the series isn't just another damn "scared people trapped in a store" bullshit like the movie. I want to know about the monsters, dammit! If I wanted to see scared people trapped in a store, I'd go visit Wal-Mart after midnight.

That's all I got for tonight, people! If I don't see any good movies before the 4th of July, enjoy Independence Day, and the beginning of summer. I will probably be back in July to post again, as soon as I find some good movies to watch. Until then, enjoy the beers and BBQ!

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

I haven't done a series roundup in a couple months now, so let's take a quick look at what I've been watching, shall we?

Brockmire (IFC) ended it's first season last month, I think, after maybe 8 half-hour episodes. When I saw the first episode, I honestly though it was going to be a heartwarming, yet funny story about an ex-broadcaster who finds redemption (and a job) by calling out the plays for a minor league baseball team. At first, I thought it was a touching idea. A former big-league announcer spends his twilight years becoming a fixture of a small hometown, and ends up recapturing a bit of his lost dignity while the home team recaptures some of it's former glory. The owner-bartender manages to save the town, which is being slowly destroyed by loss and a greedy oil company. I don't really like watching sports on TV, mind you, but everyone likes rooting for the underdog, and that's what I thought Brockmire was going to be about.

Brockmire was none of that. Hank Azaria plays Brockmire, the loud-mouthed, drunken announcer. Amanda Peet plays the bartender, who's trying to save her town from a greedy oil company. After that first couple episodes, which showed such promise, Brockmire devolved into a train wreck caused by the main character's own ego. I think maybe that was the point, but it wasn't really a good end for the first season. I was starting to root for Brockmire, but then everything went downhill. I mean, who could abandon Amanda Peet? Not I! Just didn't seem right. And who's going to save the town? Maybe we'll find out next season, if there is one.

I've had a hankering for murder mysteries lately, and Netflix had a bunch to offer. First one I discovered was Death in Paradise, a typical fish-out-of-water tale about a London detective sent to a tiny tropical island in the caribbean, to serve as the head of the Police force there. As you may know, Britain was a naval superpower back in the day, and apparently this island was still under British rule. I guess there's some law that states an Englishman has to be in charge of the police force, and that's why a replacement detective inspector was sent all the way from London to help sovle the death of the first detective, but that's all the intricacies of British law that I can follow. In any case, Death in Paradise begins with the death of the first Detective Inspector stationed on Saint Marie. Another detective inspector is sent to look into the death of the first one, and that's what kicks off the first season. I think they've gone into 5 or 6 seasons, now.

Death in Paradise worked for me, at first. The scenery of St. Marie was beautiful, and there were plenty of wide shots of the island beaches and jungles. The London guy was a brilliant detective, but was totally out of his element in Saint Marie. Leaning heavily on the local supporting police force, two officers and an attractive, female Detective Sargeant, the London guy manages to solve the case of the death of the previous inspector, and then gets shang-haied into staying on the island as the new Detective Inspector, another intricacy of British law. Ben Miller played DI (Detective Inspector) Richard Poole, Sara Martins played the beautiful DS Camille Bordey, and I could see right off that she was enchanted with the new inspector. I expected their romance to be a slow burn over a couple of seasons, and I was right, but just when I thought things were going to come to a head, DI Poole was killed off at the start of the second season.

Kris Marshall took over as the new DI, Humphrey Goodman, probably some cast kerfluffle that I was not privy to, and the series sort of took a nose-dive for me. Kris Marshall's clumsy, oafish character portrayal seemed almost too similar to DI Poole, and they solved cases in almost an identical fashion. The show became formulaic, and there was no sexual tension between anyone on the show anymore. Cases began to focus on a huge buildup before the frenetic explanation of how the crime was committed right at the end of the hour-long show, and there was often little or no evidence presented by DI Goodman to support his fanciful explanation of events around the murder. I watched supporting cast after supporting cast staring emotionless at DI Humphrey as he rattled off some ridiculous explanation of a crime that made no sense, and it was like the other actors didn't even care to act their parts, anymore.

Death in Paradise had become the DI Goodman Show, where the whole show began to revolve around Goodman's ability to make up some fanciful tale in the last 5 minutes of the show that somehow explained everything that had happened in the last hour, leading to the arrest of someone who often looked totally confused and perplexed by what had just happened to them. I wonder if the writers had even informed the cast on who was going to be arrested beforehand, or just left it up to the individual actors to try and ad-lib the proper reactions to being arrested. That would certainly explain the look of confused surprise I kept seeing on the actor's faces as they were led off in handcuffs. Surely, if they'd actually committed the murder in the fashion that the DI had described, wouldn't there be a look of angry guilt over being caught, instead? You'd think so, wouldn't you? I know I did.

Over the course of DI Humphrey Goodman's Reign of Terror, inflicting random supporting characters with imprisonment at his merest whim, the show lost a good portion of the supporting regular cast members. DS Camille Bordey was replaced by DS Florence Cassell (who, while beautiful, seems to offer no romantic options whatsoever), and one of the local officers was even replaced. At this point, the only remaining members of the original cast are Officer Dwayne Myers (Danny John-Jules) and Commissioner Selwyn Patterson (Don Warrington) ont he police side, and Catherine Bordey (Elizabeth Bourgine), Camille's mom, who at first ran the local bar and was recently elected Mayor.

In any case, it wasn't long before Kris Marshall was tapped to become the next Dr. Who (from what I've heard), and so he's been written out of the show. Sadly, he wasn't killed off like poor DI Poole, but his character ended up following his heart to some romantic interlude back in London. By some amazing coincidence of events, I started watching this show on Netflix, and then just as I finished watching the latest season there, I noticed it was actually playing on my local Public Broadcasting Channel on TV. That's where I saw DI Goodman heading off to his romantic interlude, caught up on the latest season, and saw that they'd replaced Di Goodman with another DI from London, this one an older man whose wife had just died. Accompanied by his adult daughter, this mourning Widower is the new DI of St. Marie, so I suppose he'll start solving crimes next season, if there is one. After losing so many cast members over the last half-dozen years, I would be surprised if the show was already off the rails, and ended up cancelled before it could become a total trainwreck. Still, as far as formulaic hour-long whodunnits set in exotic locations go, it's hard to go wrong with Death in Paradise. Maybe next season will get better. Personally, I think they should bring back Camille (Sara Martins) as the next DI, but what do I know?

There's another series of murder mysteries called the Midsomer Murders (also on Netflix, also British-made). These are actually closer to two-hour movie murder mysteries, but star the same recurring characters. DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) Tom Barnaby begins the first season (which consisted of 5 hour-and-a-half-or-so movies), and Netflix just added season 19. With the actual movies being made over the course of the last 20 years, from 1997 when the series began to 2017, there have obviously been a few cast changes. Tom Barnaby is played by John Nettles where I am in the series at the moment, but as I can see from IMDB, he was somehow replaced in 2011 with Neil Dudgeon, and the series is still still going. I am only up to season 7, I believe. As each "episode" is an hour and a half to two-hour movie, and each "series" consists of 4-8 movies, that easily adds up to well over 100 movies! :-o

So, if you're looking for an Agatha-Christie-Style whodunit, steeped in the idyllic small-English-town life of the (imaginary?) villages of Midsomer, look no further. The acting and production values are exemplary enough for British television, and while the murders and plot twists are sometimes easy to figure out, there's enough variety to keep most people guessing. At the rate I am watching these things (one movie every few days) I expect to be caught up to the latest series by the year 2020. Yeesh. I need to binge-watch this shit one of these days, but there's only so much dry British politeness I can handle at one sitting.

Saving Grace (also on Netflix, but not British this time) is another option. An hour-long police drama series starring Holly Hunter, I first checked it out when it aired on TV about a decade ago. Basically, it's a show about a police detective named Grace Hanadarko (Holly Hunter, and yes, Hanadarko is an odd name, I agree), who solves crimes in Texas, but is randomly visited by an angel (played by Leon Rippy). Grace is essentially the poster child for functioning alcoholics, and ends up nymphomaniacally sleeping with any number of extras and male cast members along the way. The angel (Earl, by name) is apparently Grace's "Last-Chance-Angel," meaning she's got to mend her life of drunken debauchery, or risk going to Hell. Grace is stubbornly resistant to all of Earl's interference in her affairs, and I for one was almost turned away by the constant religious message underpinning the entire show. Still, Leon Rippy made a great angel, and Holly Hunter did several nude scenes just in the first season, which kept me coming back, to see just how much nudity the show could get away with on TV. I stopped watching after the first season, but Christina Ricci pops up in the second season as a temporary replacement for Grace's partner, who is doing undercover work. I am hoping to catch the rest of the shows that I missed (just to see how much longer Holly Hunter can rock that older but in-shape naked body) before Netflix drops the show in early July.

Finally, I'm going to cap off this post with a quick review on Neil Gaiman's American Gods, on Starz (I think). Ian "Tits-and-Dragons" McShane is Mr. Wednesday (Wotan or Odin), looking to recruit a bunch of old European gods to do battle with the new American Gods, presumably to try and recapture their glory days and get someone to worship them again. I think there's only 8 episodes, and I've seen 7 of them, with the last episode of the first season to air next week. Ricky Whittles plays Shadow Moon, an employee of Mr. Wednesday, and Emily Browning plays his undead ex-wife. There's a medium-sized supporting cast, but this is no Game of Thrones.

Now, I'm not trying to say that the show is boring, but, the most exciting event in the last 7 episodes was a game of checkers. And then, in the next episode... they played checkers again. I dunno. I guess Neil Gaiman is some high mucky-muck or something, and everyone is supposedly all abuzz about this show, but watching guys play checkers just doesn't do much for me. Emily Browning might have done a few nude scenes in the last couple episodes, OR that might have been just a body suit, because under all the undead make-up, it's hard to tell. The series has felt really short, mainly because everything is all build-up leading up to the season finale, but if nothing exciting happens, I can only hope it'll be the end of the series. There's only so much watching-people-play-checkers that I can stomach, before I turn to watch Friday the 13th part 2 for the 87th time, just to see some action.

Sunday, June 11, 2017

Seems like we're losing a lot of celebrities so far this year, but trust me, it's nothing like 2016. You'd hear about a celebrity death, and then before you could finish tweeting out your sympathies, there was another one on top of it. While your mouth was still hanging open, someone else died. Crazy shit last year. But before I get to the obit, let me do the review.

The Accountant (2016) is a story about an accountant. Yep, pretty much your basic, everyday, ordinary accountant, who launders money for drug cartels, third-world dictators and mafia families. He also kills people on weekends, or any day ending in "Y." Yep, it seems the accountant is also an assassin, but he doesn't do it for money. Nope, this assassin has a moral code, and if you break his code, well, then, this accountant is going to balance your books, by any means necessary.

What, no? You saw the "balance your books" comment coming, huh? Yea, I can only make an accountant sound so exciting. He's an accountant, fer chrissakes. It's not like they do exciting work. Or maybe they find it exciting, who knows. It's alotta numbers. My eyes glazed over after 2+2=yawn.

So Christian Wollf is basically a high-functioning Autistic kid with Aspergers Syndrome, or something, who grew up and became, you guessed it, an accountant. I will say this much. I think Ben Affleck has found his, uh, "acting strengths," or lack of a better phrase. He should play abnormal guys who show absolutely no emotion from now on. He totally nailed it! At no point during this movie did I say to myself "That's Ben Affleck! He's playing an emotionless dork!" Well, maybe once or twice, I... Okay, it was every minute. You caught me.

I don't want to give anything away, but if you didn't already guess John Lithgow was the villain, you're an idiot. John Lithgow has been playing psychotic villains since I was in my teens, and he's a master at his craft. It wouldn't surprise me to find out John Lithgow actually is a psychotic villain. Actually, that would explain a lot. Hmmmm.

So, The Accountant was an action movie, with a lot of action in it. Between accountants. Yeah. It wasn't bad, I guess. The supporting cast was pretty good. I love J.K. Simmons, and Anna Kendrick is... uh. Accountant... ish... and there's John Lithgow! How can you go wrong here? Well, I saw most of the "plot twists" coming a mile away, but I guess the movie wasn't going for surprises. Just lots of action, and some fights, and hey, no explosions, but that's okay. You don't expect explosions in a movie called "The Accountant," right? Right! Would I watch it again? No. Did I like it the first time? Yeah, I guess. Would I watch a sequel? Maybe. That's all I got. The Accountant is on HBO, if you want to check it out for yourselves. Moving on.

In other news, Adam "Batman" West died yesterday, at the ripe old age of 88. Most of you younger folks probably know him from his voice acting on Family Guy (I think he played Mayor Adam West, in case you missed him there), but I never watched Family Guy, so I'll always remember him from Batman, the TV series. And no, I don't mean Gotham. I mean Batman, 1966 and 1967. It may have gone on for more years, but not even I, as old as I am, was alive back then, so I have no idea.

I remember one episode of Batman, where Batman (Adam West), Robin and Batgirl were all captured by a bunch of costumed villains, like the Penguin and Catwoman and probably the Riddler. So, of course the bad guys don't just kill the three of them, no, that would ruin the series. No, they tie Batman, Robin and Batgirl into a "Human Pretzel" or a "three-way knot" or something that sounded obscene, but actually wasn't. So, of course Batman has studied these things, and there is absolutely no way out of the human knot, and the more they struggle, the righter it gets, until all their bones crack and they die, EXCEPT... in their inexperience tying humans into knots, the villains have done it incorrectly! Batman can still wiggle his left earlobe! :-o

Okay, let's just take this a piece at a time. One, how DO you get experience tying humans into knots? I mean, just how many people do you have to tie up before you get it just right? Two, batman and Robin and Batgirl are all sitting there tied into a knot, talking to each other about the knot, and moving their jaws, and tongues, and mouths. Three, how the shit do you wiggle your left earlobe, and how, by the sweet blood of Jesus, do you untie yourself that way?

Of course, a few seconds after Batman is supposedly wiggling his left earlobe, they all fall out of the "Human Knot," and go after the bad guys. I never actually saw his earlobe move. But seriously, it takes an actor of enormous talent not to freaking crack up laughing while trying to act that "human knot" scene. I swear I saw smiles on Robin AND Batgirl, but Adam West was straight-faced the whole damn time. That's skill, right there. Consummate skill. Okay, he may have been grinning too, I honestly can't remember, but come on! Ridiculous! So, Bye Adam West, you awesome, awesome actor, you! You will be missed.

In other other news, Bill Maher said the "N-word" on his show, Real Time with Bill Maher, and everyone's shit hit the fan. I guess he apologized, and some non-caucasian person (I don't know who, because I don't always watch Bill Maher) came on his show and said it was a "teachable moment" for Bill Maher. I guess the guy said something about it feeling like a knife twisting inside of him when a white guy said the N-word, but not when a non-white person said it, and that black people were "taking back" the N-word.

Okay, I have a few problems with this, from a purely logical standpoint. Now, I'm going to fess up and admit that I am white, but I am not racist, so that shouldn't matter, at least insofar as I am making my points out of pure logic, here. I will also point out, before I begin, that I have never, and would never, use the N-word myself. It's like using the C-word to describe a woman. Yes, technically, they are just words, but it's a bit too crude for my taste. I feel all slimy inside when I even think about them, just because of the negative connotations, and also because I am a bit of a wuss.

So, my points. Okay, first, Bill Maher is an entertainer, and as far as I am aware, he's not racist, either. He didn't call anyone else the N-word, but used it in reference to himself, calling himself a "House n---a." Yes, definitely a joke in poor taste. Yes, a socially embarrassing faux-pas. But, he's a comedian. This is what they do. They dig deep for jokes, and some of those attempts at humor are shockingly brutal attempts at making you laugh. So maybe some of them aren't as funny as others, and maybe some are even offensive. They can't all be gems. Remember Don Rickles, who also just died? He made his living insulting people, and was widely loved. Yes, he was also a comedian.

Point two. Three words. Freedom of Speech. The First Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteed to every American Citizen by the oldest laws of our nation. It's a basic right. I don't recall who said it, because I am getting old, but the saying goes "I do not agree with a thing you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Telling Bill Maher he can't say the N-word is a form of censorship, and we shouldn't be agreeing with that. Censorship kills the spread of ideas, even if those ideas aren't necessarily good ones, like the N-word. I know freedom of speech gets a bad rap in this politically correct 21st-century world, but we shouldn't walk all over it, just because we can.

Point three, Bill Maher's "teachable moment." Do you really think Bill Maher doesn't know it's wrong to use the N-word? I'm pretty sure everyone knows that by now, even the people who still use it, which brings me to my next point.

Point four. I saw Luke Cage, on Netflix. I don't know who wrote the dialogue for that series, but they say the N-word every 3 and a half minutes or so (and no, I didn't time it). Seriously, non-whites, if you want people to stop using the N-word, don't you think, I don't know, maybe you should stop using it so much, too? Because at this point, non-whites are using it a hell of a lot more often than white folks, and keeping it in the common vocabulary. But hey, what do I know? I'm just making a suggestion.

Point five. How do non-caucasians "take back the N-word," exactly? By using it constantly, and getting mad when white folks say it? By telling them that it's a "teachable moment" when a white person uses it, but saying that it doesn't hurt when non-white-folks say it? So, it's totally okay for non-whites to say the N-word, but not whites? Let me recap the logic of this position, to see if they've thought this one all the way through. Non-whites are saying that, because of the color of their skin, they get special privileges? Gee, doesn't that sound a bit, I don't know, racist? Isn't that why non-whites were so mad at white people for so long, because of that very attitude? Isn't that a bit hypocritical?

So, to sum up, yes, Bill Maher screwed up, and no, Bill Maher is not a racist prick (as far as I know) who needs to apologize for the rest of his life because he said a naughty word. If there's any defensible logic to anyone saying that they have special privileges because of the color of their skin, then I'd like to hear it, because that shit just doesn't make a lick of sense, and it never has.

Some of you may be wondering why I even brought this up, because I don't like to get involved in current events, but this isn't politics, and it's not religion. Bill Maher's an entertainer and a comedian, and I like to consider myself an entertainer and a comedian, on my better days, so I thought I'd open my big yap and speak up. It was probably a mistake, but I'm not exactly known for my better judgement. :-)

That's all for tonight. Tune in next time, same bat-time, same bat-channel!

Friday, May 26, 2017

No horror movie or game review today, just an update on some news you may not have heard about, that I personally think is of great concern. In addition to being a horror-movie aficionado, I consider myself a well-read individual. I browse the internet for scientific articles on a daily basis, expanding my knowledge and stretching the limits of my brain. So it comes as no great surprise to me, when I read this article on the Mother Nature Network today, about snakes hunting in packs.

Now, if you're a horror movie fan, you know the whole animal-attack thing is a reliable theme as far as monster movies go. If you're a consistent reader of my blog, I'm sure you've read dozens of my own reviews about animal-attack movies, from "Grizzly" to "Godzilla," and that's just the movies starting with the letter G! THERE ARE 26 LETTERS IN THE ALPHABET! OPEN YOUR EYES, PEOPLE! TWENTY-SIX!

If you read between the lines of my movie reviews, or just keep up to date on my "in other news" portions of my blog (usually at the end of a review), you know that I am terrified of spiders and centipedes, those creepy-crawly little bastards that invade your home and crawl into your orifices while you sleep. I've been told that's an internet myth, but is it? Who knows what happens while you're asleep? I sure don't! Who's to say for sure? Nobody I know! Has there ever been an actual study done on how many spiders crawl into your poop-chute while you sleep? I highly doubt it! Where would they get the funding?

Now, I've been saying for years, to anyone who will listen, that spiders hunt in packs. Sure, there's no scientific evidence for that yet, but mark my words! Some day in the future, scientists will figure it out, just like they caught the snakes hunting in packs! Spiders are just sneakier about it, those wily sons-of-bitches! They sit up there in the shadows at the top of your garage rafters, plotting and planning and waiting, and sure, they eat flies and bugs and shit, but they REALLY want to be feasting on you! I mean, think about it! Who wants a dried-up scrap of flying chicken mcnugget, when they can have a hearty Whopper dripping with Special Sauce? Nobody! Those spiders LOVE your special sauce, you bet they do!

So they plot and they wait and they plan and they skulk, and one day they sneak into your house in droves when you leave the back door open half an inch, and next thing you know, you're sound asleep one night, and there's a HORDE of hungry, angry spiders crawling all over you, looking for the softest place to chow down! And then it's NOMNOMNOM while you sleep! Gives me the willies, every time I think about it! (shudder)

You scoff, sure you do. But you haven't seen what I've seen, either. If you only knew! I walked into my bathroom one day, and you know what I saw? A big hairy centipede, upside-down, ON MY CEILING!!!! That's right. The Spiders are trying to teach their allies, the centipedes, to crawl upside down on the ceiling, so they can drop onto our faces! DEATH FROM ABOVE! It's an old spider trick, one that's been tried on me dozens, if not hundreds of times.

But I am wise to their sneaky ways. I look up at my ceiling every 14.2 seconds, because that's how long it takes a fast-running spider to cross from the corners of my bedroom to the center of the ceiling. I've timed it! They will never sneak up on me whilst I am awake, but I can't stop those creepy bastards from having their way with me whilst I lay there, sound asleep, naked and helpless. I have nightmares just thinking about it, while I'm awake. I may be having one now! AAUUUGGHHH!!!

Luckily, that centipede I mentioned hadn't quite mastered the DEATH-FROM-ABOVE trick, and fell to the floor whilst I cowered in terror, about ten feet away. I was able to run and get help, and that is one less centipede who will pass on the ceiling-walking tactic to his friends. So that's my warning to you, everyone who reads my blog. The animals are banding together to come after us, and we have only one option. Safety in numbers! If we don't band together, they are bound to take us all out! The animal uprising is only a matter of time! MARK MY WORDS!

I've been warning people about spiders and centipedes for years. Now, Snakes are learning to hunt in packs. Think of that Alfred Hitchcock movie, the Birds! Wolves already hunt in packs! So do lions! What's next? Bears? I read a story about deer feasting on human remains just a few weeks ago, at a body farm where they do CSI training to show people about the decay rate of human remains. Once deer get a taste of people, what's to stop them from hunting in packs? Can you imagine a whole herd of antelope, deer, elk or even moose, coming after you, looking to munch on your flesh? Maybe cows are next! Surely, they owe us payback for all the burgers we've chomped over the years! GAAAHHHHH!! It's horrific!

I was camping in a state park a few years back, and a young man came running up to me, saying he had seen a raccoon at the edge of the woods, and had thrown stones at it til it retreated. At the time, I wondered at the audacity of a man hurling stones at a poor helpless raccoon, in the raccoon's own backyard. I wondered how the guy would like it, if he'd gone out into his backyard one day, and had raccoons throwing stones at him? But now, I realize, maybe I got it all wrong. Maybe that guy had it right. We need to start hunting these bastards in packs, people! Grab whatever weapons you can find! It doesn't matter what sort of animal it is! Raccoons, bunnies, newts, it doesn't matter! KILL IT! SMASH IT WITH A ROCK! *

In other news, I was disturbed to hear of the passing of Sir Roger Moore a couple days ago. When I was a kid, from when I was 3 to the time I was 15, there were no other Bonds. I didn't even find out about Sean Connery's turn in the bond movies until after Roger Moore was ready to retire. At the time, Roger Moore was the epitome of cool, and as a totally-uncool geeky nerd, I endeavored to be as smooth and sophisticated at Roger Moore. I never achieved that level of suavity, and quite honestly, pretending to be British only got me beat up more often. That's Amurrica for ya.

Sure, Roger Moore's Bond was more verbally witty and less physical than Sean Connery's rough-and-ready look, but Timothy Dalton's Bond was way too high-strung and serious for my taste. I mean, just think of the villains! Remember Richard Kiel's Jaws? The guy with the metal teeth? What Bond Villain has been as memorable since then? I can't think of a one. And it was Roger Moore who took Jaws down, outsmarting him time after time. At the time, I was a little guy in a world of bigger, less-intelligent brutes, and I could readily identify with Roger's Moore's David-and-Goliath tactics. Later on, Pierce Brosnan was probably the best actor to ever play Bond, becoming what I thought to be the most believable of the bunch. I started this blog back in 2009 to rail against the horrible acting of Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, and how he'd ruined everything that Bond stood for, so I won't go into that again. Suffice it to say, I can't wait til they replace Craig with someone else, and won't watch a 007 movie with Craig in it.

By all reports, Sir Roger Moore was a gentleman, a philanthropist, and one helluva nice guy, as well as being a devoted father. According to his family, he passed amidst a sea of loved ones. He was humble as well, saying that his success as an actor was 99.9% luck, the mere act of being in the right place at the right time, and the other .1% was just his modest contribution. I honestly expected Sean Connery to precede Roger Moore as far as dying was concerned, but I only recently found out that Roger Moore is actually 2 years older than Sean Connery. Not that I would have preferred Sean Connery to go first, as Mr. Connery's movie career consisted of more blockbuster films than just the Bond series, and he will probably be recalled for the bulk of his movie work when he does eventually pass on. Still, it was sad to hear of Roger Moore dying, because he was the Bond I grew up with, the one I had aspired to be, if only for a short time (before I was beaten up for pretending to be British).

I will say one thing, in closing. If I ever hear that spiders had anything to do with Sir Roger's death, there will be vengeance. Spiders, if you're reading this, take note. VENGEANCE! (shakes fist at screen)

That's all for now, people! Til next time, remember: there's 26 letters in the alphabet.

* (Do not actually go into the woods and smash a newt with a rock. Newts are poisonous, the venomous assassins of the animal world, and you cannot take them without decades of specialized rock-bashing-training. Trust me on this. I've tried, and barely escaped with my life. I still have the scars to prove it.)

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Wheee, that's it, people! We made it through another 40 Days without Sex! Or, whatever it was you gave up for Lent. I gave up Pink Unicorns, which, well, let me tell ya, it was HELL living without for 40 days. HELL.

Suiceide Squad (2016) is all about a guy who also, by some strange coincidence, loves Pink Unicorns! :-o He also throws Boomarangs, and is an aussie, which, I mean, can you get any more stereotypical for an aussie? Ugh. DC Comics, you're killing me, guys. Killin me. There's also some other "meta-human villains" as they called them in the movie. Deadshot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (no idea who played her), and a bunch of other, lesser known actors playing other super-powered villains. As we all know by now, Harley Quinn is the Joker's sidekick, who makes a few brief cameo appearances in this movie, though I'm not sure how they managed to convince him. Offerred him some dirt on Batman, maybe? Meh.

So, erm, the plot, which, takes a VERY slow and plodding 45 minutes to build up, basically revolves around a sort of demonic possession similar to the Exorcist only without Linda Blair and with a little less split pea soup. The "Suicide Squad" is a group of villains who are recruited by the star league to defend the frontier against Xur, and the Ko-Dan armada... wait. No. Wrong movie. That's the Last Starfighter. Suicide Squad is about a group of Villains recruited to fight bad guys, yes, yes, that's it. Sort of like throwing a hand grenade at another hand grenade to render the explosion from the first hand grenade moot, or maybe that would just make a bigger explosion or something. I guess at that point, you really don't care about making a bigger explosion? Meh. Not sure about the logic behind the whole thing.

So, was the movie any good? Well, I almost turned it off half an hour in because it was taking so long to get anywhere, but I kept watching because the possessed girl was really hot. After it got less talky talky and more fighty fighty, the action moved along pretty fast, so I suppose they had to toss that 45 minutes of filler into it to make the movie make sense, or just have it last slightly longer than your average episode of Grimm. I thought there was a little too much CGI, but I guess that's where all the action is in movies, nowadays. Would I watch it again? No. Not much else to see, and nothing particularly exciting or original about this movie. I've never really been fond of DC comics for some reason. It's like the heroes are, I don't know, too fake, or something. Viola Davis is always fun to watch, though. Good actress. Suicide Squad is on HBO this month, if you want to watch it.

It Follows (2014) is about what may possibly be the worst STD ever. This poor girl sleeps with her new BF for the first time, and he ends up Chloroforming the shit out of her. When she wakes up, she's tied to a wheelchair in an area that looks like the underside of a highway, and not in a good way. Apparently, there is now something following her, and only she can see it. What follows (HAH I MAKE JOKE!) is not exactly scary, but filled with a few jump scares and the kind of horror that simple camera tricks can achieve, because this movie apparently didn't really have a big budget for special effects. Meh, I guess it was okay? Didn't exactly power my vibrator, as the saying goes. What, that's not really a saying? Well, it is now. It Follows is on Showtime Women (where i saw it), or also on Netflix, I believe, if you'd care to have a peek at it.